The present disclosure generally relates to methods of stretching substrate materials typically used for personal care products such as wet wipes. Specifically, the methods of stretching allow for substrate materials having increased thickness and decreased basis weight, which reduces fiber usage and costs of making the personal care products while still providing products having a soft desirable feel to the user.
Personal care products such as wet wipes are typically made from spunlace substrate materials, coform substrate materials, meltblown substrate materials, spunbond substrate materials, or combinations thereof. In recent years, however, due to increasing commodity prices, there has been a desire to reduce fiber usage of these materials.
It has been found that in reducing fiber usage, product strength and skin feel suffer. Specifically, products produced using less spunlace and/or coform fibers, have found to be weaker. The strength and coverage of a substrate material depends to a large extent on the basis weight of the material. Typically, substrate materials including spunlace and coform materials used in personal care products have a basis weight ranging from about 25 grams per square meter (gsm) to about 150 gsm to provide the desired strength and coverage. Unfortunately, while strength and coverage may be increased by increasing basis weight, the softness tends to decrease. Thus, it is a particular challenge to provide materials having each of these properties such that they are suitable for use in wet wipes.
As such, there is a need for a personal care product, such as a wet wipe, that can be produced using less fibers, and thus, having a reduced basis weight, while maintaining thickness of the product to create a soft desirable feel to the skin of the user. Additionally, it would be advantageous if the product was created to have a reduced basis weight and an increased thickness.